Fiat Chrysler talking with many non-core auto players -CEO

CHICAGO, March 30 (Reuters) - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
(FCA) is talking with many players outside
the car sector about possible collaboration, Chief Executive
Sergio Marchionne said, and is keeping an open mind on what the
possibilities might be.

Car technology has become a prime area of interest for
Silicon Valley companies including Alphabet Inc's
Google, which has built a prototype self-driving car, and Apple
Inc, which Marchionne said earlier this month should
collaborate with carmakers to make a vehicle rather than trying
to go it alone.

The growing use of computing power in vehicles is providing
technology companies and automakers with new business
opportunities - and increasingly making them rivals.

"We have parallel conversations with many players who are
outside the auto sector at the moment," Marchionne said at an
impromptu press conference after an industry event here.

"We can't go into these discussions with a precise idea of
what FCA wants. We're learning, just as they are learning," he
said. "And the solution will be a shared solution and developed
together with them, not developed by us alone."

Marchionne, who has long-touted the need for further
consolidation in the traditional auto sector, reiterated reasons
for not linking up with French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen
, which has said it is open to strategic opportunities.

"We ... realized that even though there was a certain
advantage in an association with PSA, it was an advantage that
was too little and that in effect would limit the choices open
to FCA going forward," he said on Wednesday.

Marchionne indicated that any partner for FCA would have to
be strong where FCA is weakest, in China, the world's biggest
auto market.

"The great advantage of FCA as potential partner", said
Marchionne, is that the company has a strong presence in Latin
America where the market is weak at the moment, and in North
America and Europe, but added, "we're much weaker than the
others in China. That's something we are trying to ameliorate"

He, however, added that Latin America also continued to be a
problem for FCA and its competitors, pointing to current
political upheaval in Brazil. And while he welcomed the big
changes being made by Argentina's new president, Mauricio Macri,
he added that any gains in Argentina will not overcome weakness
in Brazil, which is a much larger market.
(Reporting by Jo Winterbottom; Editing by Himani Sarkar)